His symphonic-soul innovations here would map out the course of much 1970s soul music, while his use of multi-layered vocals – the happy result of an engineer accidentally running two vocal takes in the same mix – added an extra element to Gaye's vocal armoury which he would use extensively throughout the rest of his career.

Though spoilt in places by distortion and too-prominent electric piano, the hitherto unheard material is notable for the innovative exploration of yet another roots blend, through the impassioned country-soul of songs such as “That’s the Breaks”. Clearly, in this most congenial of creative cauldrons, virtually anything was possible.

The piquant combination of Morrissey’s blithe aloofness and double-edged, acidly humorous lyrics with Johnny Marr’s endlessly inventive, precociously African-influenced guitar parts was rarely more effective than here.

It remains one of pop's most impervious generational touchstones.

The character of the base music here is overwhelming: complex, ebullient and life-affirming, and in yoking this intricate dance music to his sophisticated New Yorker sensibility, Simon created a transatlantic bridge that neither pandered to nor patronised either culture.

Manic descants, discordant pianos and abrupt changes in time signature at once complement and compete with each other in a carefully crafted clatter. The melodies are wonderful. The lyrics, too – conversational yet precise.

An astonishing record.

REM’s brooding masterwork. ... It’s an album of shadows and contrasts: “Drive”, for instance, opens proceedings on the cusp of adulthood, imparting youthful rebel spirit with a warning sense of duty for the future, before “Try Not To Breathe” offers an extraordinary image of an old person eager to leave the world to the young.

Proving that it is possible to have too much of a good thing, the five discs of this outtakes-and-all edition take the (let's be honest) rather meager delights of Brian Wilson's unfinished "masterwork" and wring the life out of them.

It's an extraordinary collection, which demonstrates exactly why Guthrie was perhaps the only performer who could square the circle pointedly implied by the title American Radical Patriot.

This album isn't a 'Holy shit I need to text my friend imploring them to listen immediately' mind blower, but it is a valuable addition to his oeuvre.

His richly soporific new album – his first new material since 2012’s Tempest – plays like an extension of that [2016 Nobel Prize acceptance] speech: a folksy recitation of literary and pop references sprawling over long, ramshackle songs with minimal (mostly acoustic) melodies that sway back and forth behind him like curtains in a light breeze.

Notwithstanding the occasional foray into jazz and blues, Black Messiah is much the same blend of miasmic boudoir soul, bare-bones funk and liberation songs that characterised his 2000 milestone, Voodoo.

So although Cave’s adept grasp of vocal expression, from aching melancholy to erupting hysteria, guides the narratives of these songs, this is not simply a singer backed by a band, it’s a unit striving for collective expression, by whatever means possible.

They pushed the single envelope in various directions – processional chants, electric-organ improvisations, big-band “space bop”, and at the furthest extreme of his sonic galaxy, the furious free-jazz of “Cosmo-Extensions”, guaranteed to clear the floor at any party.

The result is beautiful, visceral and, predictably, emotionally devastating.

Like Picasso, he acknowledges that the chief enemy of creativity is good taste--which is just as well, since it's not a quality with which he seems over-burdened on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. For which we should all be thankful.

This is a spectacular record.

Twenty-five years ago, Lifes Rich Pageant found R.E.M. metamorphosing from what was effectively a turbo-charged folk-rock cult indie outfit into a proper rock band capable of filling stadia.

It all adds up to probably the best Stones album since... well, since Some Girls, actually.

This 1991 album is the best of three reissues of their work – also available are their debut, Isn't Anything, and a 2CD compilation of outtakes and EPs.

[It is] possibly the band's best album.

Macero’s edits on the original double-album collaged four nights’ shows into a single, 20-minute track apiece; but this 4CD set presents each night’s ebullient flow in full.

Across the album’s 13 tracks, she flits easily between pop’s peripherals and its core, dispensing emotional catharsis all the way.

Lemonade is fiery, insurgent, fiercely proud, sprawling and sharply focused in its dissatisfaction.

The sheer grace and ambition of Ants… will prove tough for 2022 to top. A huge leap forward, headfirst into the unknown.

It's a relief to report that Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down is his best effort by far since Chavez Ravine.

Gently marching strings furnish an aptly martial underscoring for the conflict imagery of “Treaty”, the latest of Cohen’s romantic mea culpas, which reveals how, for a Great Seducer, love is an essentially narcissistic, even solipsistic, pastime, its protagonist apologising “for that ghost I made you be”. It’s just one of several sharp, stinging twists casting new and unusual shadows on old themes in You Want It Darker, culminating in the mordant, bitter advice of “Steer Your Way.”

It's simply marvellous, an unalloyed joy from first to last, with Robbie Robertson's finely wrought storytelling songs augmented by a few well-chosen covers.

With Rifles & Rosary Beads, she’s created her most impressive and affecting work yet.

WAAITT is a compelling, conscious-jolting account of a life of two halves.

Titanic Rising isn’t Bob Seger meets Enya. It’s better.

Although the sonic mood mellows after the first two tracks, listeners will be invited to share the transcendent joy in memories of a lost child; the awe of an uxorious lover whose prayer-like love for his wife is a continual saving grace; and the frustration of a caged man with an “open road” of a heart.

Fuelled by a black humour that’s almost become her trademark, there’s heartbreak and ecstasy, desire, fear, uncertainty, acting on impulse, making mistakes and (maybe) learning from them. And those are tunes we can definitely dance to.

Across 27 tracks, almost all with compellingly muscular melodies, she whips and neigh-neighs through every conceivable form of classic and modern country, roping in elements of opera, rock and hip-hop at her commanding, virtuosic whim. .... Cowboy Carter keeps on dealing aces.

Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, lands with devastating precision. These 13 tracks are finely wrought works of art that draw as much influence from Purcell and Mozart as they do scuzzy Nineties post-punk.

This re-recording is a better, brighter version of a terrific pop album. Red is dead. Long live Red (Taylor's Version).

Finally, maverick genius Sly Stone receives due respect in this four-disc retrospective, as the leader of rock's first multi-racial, multi-gender, multi-genre band.

The 10 albums that comprise this box set depict one of the most extraordinary career arcs in all of pop music, testament to the questing intelligence with which Joni Mitchell approached music.

Ingenious arrangements illuminate the songs, notably the blissful synth solo reaffirming life and love in “All Of Me Wants All Of You”, and the 12 minutes of keening sounds, like the moaning of whales, appended to “Blue Bucket Of Gold”.

That there are spots of filler on the first hour of Beyonce’s new trilogy suggests we’re in for indulgence, but that there are brisk bangers and Lemonade-like leaps of genre too bodes well for Beyonce’s defiant emotional renaissance.

What Simz does here is phenomenal. This is an album--and artist--to cherish.

All in all, it’s a fine addition to the seemingly bottomless corpus of Springsteen’s ever-expanding oeuvre.

As with Visions, this third album sees the band hopping between styles – folk, garage rock and shoegaze – only now they’re steering deeper into the corners and controlling the skids.

Four decades on, it sounds as revolutionary as ever.

GUTS sees Rodrigo smash her way out of the confines of small screen life and arrive kicking and screaming into her real life. No more red lights or stop signs in her way.

Despite the hiatus, this guest-laden double-album finds the group still very much engaged, rattling out tongue-twisting, articulate verbal flows dealing more with social realities than self-aggrandising brags and outlaw fantasies.

Rarely have his revelations been as direct, or as personal, as on Carrie & Lowell, a cathartic exercise exploring the effect of his estranged mother Carrie’s death on him two years ago.

Though frowned on by some purists expecting the traditional fare of the family band The Watersons, the siblings’ original songs were eagerly accompanied by luminaries like Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson and Ashley Hutchings, who bring a roguish enthusiasm to tracks such as “Rubber Band”, on which even the horns seem to have their cap at a jaunty angle.

On her new album, Eve, she explores a lineage of black female icons in a way that is both tender and compelling. ... The overarching sound, production and instrumentation on Eve are outstanding. ... Nina Simone said an artist’s duty, “as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times”. This is precisely what Rapsody has done – in the most resonant way possible.

Punisher ends with a thunderstorm of manic, discordant brass and drums and a pained scream, the physical culmination of the undercurrent of doom that has lurked throughout. But you emerge feeling not deflated but purged. Punisher has the effect of a particularly pummelling massage.

These 15 pieces sketch an entire world of music, coloured by the locale, and shifting between the smoothly lyrical and the propulsive rhythmic.

This revamp does at least serve as a reminder of the album’s untouchable greatness.

The subtle melodies on The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We can take their time to gleam through the murk. So give it time and space at night, when you’re alone, to allow its wild darkness to shine.

Even when required to accommodate passing trends like mambo or funk, Hooker’s blues simply bent a little, but never broke. Its atavistic power, he knew, resided in its hypnotic grip, which effectively crystallised rock’n’roll years before the style was recognised.

Kouyate's electrification of his ngoni lute is just as effective a sign of resistance: fed through a wah-wah pedal, his serpentine, fleet-fingered lead lines gain a fresh, assertive power on songs.

Even if you don’t love This Could Be Texas, it’s a hard album not to respect. English Teacher have well and truly arrived: the class had better pay attention.

One of the most thoughtful, moving and necessary albums of 2019 so far. ... Tracks are at once astute and deeply personal in how they capture vignettes of everyday life and spin them into important lessons.

Most of them slot together with an appealing combination of simplicity and enigma – like those little puzzle cubes made of three types of wood. All the while, you can hear the careful questioning with which the songwriters have honed one another’s thoughts until they slot smoothly together to become satisfying tactile emotional experiences.

Irish folk quartet Lankum’s second album offers an object lesson in how to perform old songs in new ways, without losing the essential sense of continuity that gives traditional music its timeless appeal.

When the album shifts into its second part, and turns inwards with a slower pace to match its vulnerable introspection, there’s no jolt: Sumney’s voice ensures that his soundscapes melt together. It’s here that the emotional heft is to be found.

The faithful will feel more than sated, and newcomers will find more to suck on here than a peppermint bass drum.

Throughout there’s a determination to find the appeal in paradox, notably the beguiling blend of cool and cumbersome that carries the love song “Prince Johnny” to another place.

Nine songs that glow and pulse with bittersweet sensuality.

The record is an introspective mix of psychey soul, blues, rock and funk, which skips and strolls and swaggers through its 13 tracks – but it is not simply an exercise in nostalgia. Its influences span decades; Gil Scott-Heron, Fela Kuti, Kendrick Lamar and Bobby Womack are all recalled.

This is music of stellar quality, from the smirking masturbation anthem “Low Yo Yo Stuff” to the berserk wizardry of “Big Eyed Beans from Venus.”

Run the Jewels 4 is the culmination of their near-30 years of experience, during which time they have observed, listened and reacted. Their anger, hurt, elation and love – along with their near-psychic ability to read and riff off one another’s individual thoughts – build to the radioactive “a few words for the firing squad”, the album’s astounding apex.

Rina’s mini album may have marked her out as one to watch, but SAWAYAMA stakes her claim as one of the boldest voices in pop today.

Notionally a five-track EP, M3LL155X is in its fullest realisation an art film/performance (co-directed and co-choreographed by her), freely available on YouTube.... Musically, it’s a more focused, coherent application of the same kinds of sounds and vocals used on LP1.

Heart Under thrums with menace, a glint of teeth always on display yet never fully bared. Heart Under is an album rooted in anticipation: Just Mustard know it’s the glimmer of danger that’s most enthralling of all.

The result is a record as expansive as it is overwhelming.

Though already condemned by Van himself, there's much to appreciate about this 4-CD expanded edition of one of the greatest albums ever recorded. It's fascinating to follow the development of a track such as "Caravan" across half a dozen takes.

For Those I Love is as much a piece of history as it is a work of art. ... A staggering album.

Her follow-up to 2013’s sublime Pushin’ Against A Stone finds Valerie June expanding her unique blend of blues, soul and mountain music to create a distinctive hybrid in which past and future coalesce with gentle power.

Musgraves has always been a brilliant songwriter but she’s never sounded as confident as this; it’s as though a wall has been knocked down and a little of that bolshy attitude has been paired back to make for some of her most personal lyrics.

Letissier makes her vintage synths snap, crackle, pop, fizz, freeze, squelch, shimmer and soar.

The songs on Tigers Blood feel natural and unstudied.

Save for the chunky “Don’t You Wait”, there’s little punch or pop charm to the album, which boasts a surfeit of luscious textures and feisty attitudes, but a shortfall of killer melodies.

Occasionally, the meandering nature of Mvula’s song structures can leave you grasping for more melody, but the moods she creates are always clearly defined.

When I Get Home is an album, yes. But ultimately, it’s a sleepy, uplifting antidote to the often painful reality that black people, particularly black Americans in Solange’s experience, have been increasingly facing in recent years. We’re in the midst of ever-escalating chaos. But here Solange has come, offering us a chance not just to rest, but to relish in that languidness.

The sheer ambition on We Are Not Your Kind is just as staggering. ... This may be one of the band’s most personal records, but the rage they capture is universally felt.

This is proudly shape-shifting, genre-defying music.

The result is a record that is by turns lush and ethereal, a sonically cohesive venture into slightly unfamiliar territory.

Riderless Horse obviously isn’t an easy listen. At times – as on “Go Away – it gets dirgy. But its truth-hounding also delivers poetry and restful release.

Haim take us through a dark place and they do it frankly. But they never let the momentum dip. And they never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.

There are no pop bangers here, just exquisite, piano-based poetry. There are characters Swift has never introduced before. Some are fictional, it seems; some are inspired by family members; some are people Swift wishes she hadn’t met. Folklore’s songs care less for those showstopping one-liners and more about the small details.

Thoughtful, engaging and utterly contemporary, it’s one of the albums of the year.

Bulging with 55 previously unreleased outtakes, Come All Ye is an education, and as entertaining as it gets.

Her best work to date. ... Violins courtesy of Rob Moose (The National, Bon Iver) make this in part an elegy for her own experiences. What a marvel this album is.

Honestly, there isn’t a duff track on here. Every beat is elastic, every note and sample bold and shiny. Future Nostalgia is 37 minutes of pure sonic spandex.

As usual with Newsom, the deeper resonances resound louder with subsequent exposure.

The songs themselves are good. Grounded in pathos, they tend to be handsomely crafted ballads about love and its various agonies – but it’s her vocals that sell them.

Despite its 16 tracks, not once does Long Lost feel crowded. The pace is unhurried, the phrasing exquisite.

An album which contains no filler at all, each track blooming in its own way like a collection of strange desert succulents, with a whole lot of hollerin' and a touch of Lieber-Stollerin'.

Drawing on the embattled, hopeful possibilities of early Seventies soul, rock and folk, its chamber-classical and folk instrumentation allows for pleasure as well as despair. This is a Radiohead album to make you feel, better.

A brilliantly-realised evocation of addiction building to crisis-point before the inevitable comedown heralds a change in priorities, it gives some idea of what Clark herself may be building towards.

This is the most country she has ever sounded. The most lavish, too, despite the album having been stripped back to only its most necessary parts.

Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is the most thrilling album of the year.